'Margo's Got Money Troubles' cinematographer on navigating the world of OnlyFans

From staging large-scale wrestling sequences to filming inside active Las Vegas casinos, cinematographer Tari Segal was responsible for some of the most technically demanding scenes in Apple TV’s Margo’s Got Money Troubles.

"The way to convince the producers is that if we could fit it within the schedule, we could get it," Segal says of the three-day shot in Vegas. 

Based on Rufi Thorpe’s novel and developed by David E. Kelley for A24, the series follows a young mother whose financial struggles draw her into the online realm of OnlyFans. Elle Fanning both stars and executive produces, alongside Michelle Pfeiffer and Nicole Kidman.

Segal speaks to Screen about collaborating with fellow DP Carl Herse, attending a live wrestling match for visual inspiration, and developing an approach guided entirely by Margo’s perspective.

How would you describe your visual approach to the story?

For me, everything was based around Margo's perspective. I broke it down as first person and third person Margo, because there are moments where we're watching her and moments where she's taking us on a ride. We had a really great Steadicam operator, Orlando [Duguay]. He can make a Steadicam feel like a dolly move, so we could follow Margo and pull her into these amazing choreographed shots. There are times we're using handheld and it feels very free and casual, but it was all very planned and specific. The idea was to have a naturalism, especially with the lighting, so that it felt like everything was real without being too gritty.

The series moves between highly staged worlds of professional wrestling and online creator culture. How did you research those environments?

Before we even started shooting, the producers sent us to the Intuit Dome to see a wrestling match. None of us were really familiar with wrestling, and it was something I've never seen. The production was so grand. So when we did WrestleCon, we went all out. That scene in episode four was such a crazy experience because we had nothing. We found this two-floor conference area in Pasadena, and it was completely empty. We built it in two days and we had a day and a half to shoot it. I had to control these huge skylights and put lights up so we could maintain the level of daylight.

With OnlyFans, we got access so we could take a look at what people do – if we didn't know already. I really leaned into what it would be like for someone like Susie, who doesn't have a lot of money and is trying to help her friend take pictures. I loved developing this idea that she's probably a gamer with one or two lights already, and as the show goes on, she adds to it, whether she borrows from the school or goes to Amazon to buy more. The lighting for that was meant to be stuff you would probably buy online.

What was it like collaborating with fellow DP Carl Herse?

Dearbhla [Walsh, the director] told us we had a very similar lookbook. That was a really easy collaboration, which doesn't always happen between two DPs. I did episodes three and four with Kate [Herron], five with Dearbhla, and then we did the finale together. The cinematography does develop more in the moody, stylistic sense as we go further into the story. Carl and I would be in touch about what we’re doing for each episode. We would just build off each other's ideas.

How did you navigate shooting the Las Vegas material in just three days?

That was for episode five. We pre-scouted in Vegas so we could get an idea of where we wanted to go, but most of it was shot in LA. One thing I really loved about the locations we picked was the warmth and the glow, so we brought that over to our LA stages. There's a scene where Shyanne and Margo are fighting at the restaurant, and I put these twinkly lights in the background. We shot that a month before we shot the part where they exit – that was done in Vegas. It was amazing our actors could pick it up a month later.

We couldn’t really close down the casino, but they gave us certain areas. Let's say they have eight poker tables, they would give us four that were closed during the morning. There were a couple hours of the day it was a little bit slower and they said we could shoot, but we couldn’t stop people from playing. We surrounded ourselves with about 50 plus background [actors] so we wouldn't have too many looky loos.

We got permission from the ferris wheel to pick a colour and they let us light the whole thing. They slowed it down enough for us to push all of our equipment in, and by the time it came back, we were ready with our actors. We went into one ball and Elle went into another ball with two people hidden. Then we just went around once, and we pulled it off like a military execution. At the same time we're doing that, I have a second unit camera a block and a half away, and I could see them getting a shot of Jinx coming out of the bar and seeing the sphere. You only have a certain amount of nighttime in a 12-hour day so we had to take advantage. We really fought for these moments. Some of them were scripted and some were just things we found when we were scouting. The way to convince the producers is that if we could fit it within the schedule, we could get it.

How did your visual approach evolve as the story became more serious?

One of the things I really enjoyed about the show was that it did feel quite authentic and true to life. There's all this hard stuff going on, but when you're with friends, you listen to music and you try to make the most out of a bad situation. That's life, and there's no apologising for it. When things got really serious, the lighting shifted so it just happened to be a time of day with less sun or it just happened to be a room with only the lamps on. It would still feel like it's in the same world, but there would be a little more contrast that really shows the shadows.